Zondo commission needs to deal with issues ‘in a transparent way’

South Africans will be able to listen to the experiences of those who blew the whistle on state capture and decide for themselves if the Gupta family and their cohorts have a case to answer for defrauding the state of billions of rands. 

High-profile witnesses will be called to kick off the hearings. 

The commission says former deputy finance minister Mncebisi Jonas and former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor will be among the first witnesses. 

Both have been outspoken about the role the controversial Gupta family allegedly played in the appointment ministers and SOE board members during the reign of former president Jacob Zuma.

Francis Antonie, from the Helen Suzman Foundation, says they hope the inquiry will fair and all the issues will be raised and dealt with in a transparent way.

“My hope is that it will be a fair inquiry and it will be able to air the issues properly and in a transparent way, from the Helen Suzman Foundation point of view, we will be watching the inquiry very carefully.” 

Antonie says the foundation hopes the inquiry will help South Africans gain a better understanding of what has transpired over the last decade.

“My hope is that this inquiry which is going to be a long inquiry, will be able to help us South Africans understand what has happened over the last decade or so and that we can recover some of the monies that have disappeared”

After a hard battle by civil society groups, churches and the opposition parties, the Zondo commission was appointed in January and could last two years.

Antonie says the foundation is mindful that the country will be going to elections next year, when a new government will be elected, but that between now and then a lot of work needs to be done.  

“We are all mindful of the elections coming up next year, possibly early May, but in the meantime there is a lot of work that needs to be done between now and May. Whichever government is there civil society and the people expect them to do the right thing.”

The Organisation for Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), meanwhile, says it has been calling for the commission for a long time and says they are very glad that it's finally getting underway.

"It will be interesting to see how the puzzle pieces start to fit into place over time", says OUTA's Wayne Duvenhage.

"It's going to be a very exciting period for us, because what we are going to start seeing is the people who were involved in state capture, and the extent of that, and there are a lot of other names that are going to come out.

"As the picture of state capture gets clearer in the minds of South Africans so is this release and this understanding that now at least we know what's happening.” 

Duvenhage says they hope the next chapter will then entail that those who are guilty will be held accountable.

“We want to see people in the dock. We want to see people in jail.

"We know this commission doesn't do that, but from this will flow the prosecutions and very wealthy people will be ending up behind bars. That's the actual outcome that we are seeking."